Events

Jonathan Gruber Speaks on Health Care Reform

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Professor Jonathan Gruber from MIT recently spoke to a standing-room only crowd in Konover Auditorium about health care reform in the U.S.  Speaking at the 2nd annual Philip E. Austin Forum on the Economics of Public Policy on “Health-Care Reform in the U.S.: What Happened and Where Do We Go Now?”, Gruber described his experience with health care reform in Massachusetts.  Gruber was a key architect of the Massachusetts program.  He described Massachusetts’ “three-legged stool” approach to ensuring adequate health care coverage, which includes (1) insurance market reforms (to prohibit exclusions or pricing based on health status), (2) a mandate that individuals buy insurance (or pay a penalty for not doing so), and (3) subsidies to help low-income individuals comply with the mandate.

Gruber then compared the Massachusetts experience to the experience of federal health care reform embodied in the Obama-led Affordable Care Act.  He noted that, while the federal reform is based on the same three-legged stool approach used in Massachusetts, it is more ambitious (and hence challenging).  Unlike the Massachusetts reform, the federal program had to find new sources of money to fund the subsidies required to ensure access to insurance for low income individuals.  In addition, the federal reform sought to bring down rising health care costs, which was not a primary goal of the reforms in Massachusetts.  Gruber went on to discuss the challenges currently facing the implementation of the federal reform.  

Professor Gruber is a leading expert on the economics of health care.  He has published extensively on this topic and has served as an advisor on health care reform at both the state and federal level.  The Austin Forum is designed to bring experts such as Professor Gruber to UConn to discuss important, contemporary public policy issues from an economic perspective, and to honor the legacy of President Phil Austin, who served as President of the University from 1996-2007 and is currently serving as Interim President.

Spring Awards Banquet

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On April 14, the department convened for an awards banquet that recognized the best among undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. This year’s award recipients are:

Omicron Delta Epsilon inductees:
Samuel Arvidson
Geoffrey Battista
Gaetano D’Alessio
Daniel DiMauro
Asimina Diamandopoulos
Titus Ibrahim Kanu
Shawn James McDermott
Sean McManus
Brendan Molloy
Kyle Niejadlik
Dan Rabinove

Undergraduate Awards
Louis D. Traurig Scholarship
Jocelyn Abraham
Sandie Gong
Connor Grant
William Kimball
Sean McManus
Loi Nham
Gang Yin

Paul N. Taylor Memorial Prize
Kristina Sowin

Rockwood Q. P. Chin Scholarship
Brooke Smith

Abraham Ribicoff Scholarship
Geoffrey Battista
Mark Connolly
Nicholas Leonetti

Ross Mayer Scholarship
Kevin Landry

Audrey Beck Scholarship
Mark Connolly

Graduate Awards
Albert E. Waugh Scholarship
Weiran Huang
Ranjini Neogi
Paul Tomolonis

W. Harrison Carter Award
Archita Banik
Elizabeth Kaletski

Abraham Ribicoff Graduate Fellowship
Arnab Deb
Weiran Huang
Shen Jin
Sanglim Lee

Timothy A. and Beverly C. Holt Economics Fellowship
Marcello Graziano
Elizabeth Kaletski
Michael Lorenzo
Zheng Xu
Xinyi Zheng
Rong Zhou

Ross D. MacKinnon Graduate Fellowship
Archita Banik

CLAS Dean’s Fund Graduate Fellowship
Matthiew Burnside
Leshui He
Stephen Kuchta
Matthew Schurin

Faculty Awards
Grillo Family Research Award
Olivier Morand

Grillo Family Teaching Award
Richard Langlois

Congratulations to everyone!

Workshop to address state of economic rights

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The Economic & Social Rights Research Group (ESRG) of the UConn Human Rights Institute will be hosting its annual workshop this Saturday. This year’s theme is to investigate the status of each economic right. Lead by Prof. Minkler as well as Prof. Hertel from Political Sciences, the members of the group and its associates will meet in Room 304B of the Student Union all day with an agenda comprising 18 presentation. The department contributes three, with Prof. Randolph on the right to food, Adjunct Prof. Derek Johnson on the right to education and Prof. Zimmermann on the right to social security.

Fed Chairman Bernanke to speak on campus

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The current chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke will be on campus to speak about his career during the Association of Graduate Economics Students (AGES) “Life after UConn” event. This event invites graduates to speak about their experience after leaving the campus. While Bernanke is not a UConn graduate, he attended some Summer classes on the Stamford campus during his undergraduate studies.

“Life after UConn” will take place this Friday at noon, in room 339 of the Monteith Building.

John Siegfried to talk on how Economics has improved lives

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John Siegfried, Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University and Secretary-Treasurer of the American Economic Association, will be on campus April 6 to talk about his latest book published with Harvard University Press, Better Living through Economics. It examines case studies that demonstrate how economic research has improved economic and social conditions over the past half century by influencing public policy decisions.

Economists were obviously instrumental in revising the consumer price index and in devising auctions for allocating spectrum rights to cell phone providers in the 1990s. But perhaps more surprisingly, economists built the foundation for eliminating the military draft in favor of an all-volunteer army in 1973, for passing the Earned Income Tax Credit in 1975, for deregulating airlines in 1978, for adopting the welfare-to-work reforms during the Clinton administration, and for implementing the Pension Reform Act of 2006 that allowed employers to automatically enroll employees in a 401(k). Other important policy changes resulting from economists’ research include a new approach to monetary policy that resulted in moderated economic fluctuations (at least until 2008!), the reduction of trade impediments that allows countries to better exploit their natural advantages, a revision of antitrust policy to focus on those market characteristics that affect competition, an improved method of placing new physicians in hospital residencies that is more likely to keep married couples in the same city, and the adoption of tradable emissions rights, which has improved our environment at minimum cost.

Prof Siegfried will be presenting on Wednesday April 6 at noon in the Konover Auditorium of the Dodd Research Center.

Next Austin Forum on Economics and Public Policy to address health care reform

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This year’s Austin Forum will feature a presentation by Prof. Jonathan Gruber, entitled “Health Care Reform in the U.S.: What Happened and Where Do We Go Now?” It will take place on Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. in the Konover Auditorium of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. This event is open to the public.

Jonathan Gruber is a Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1992. He was a key architect of Massachusetts’ health care reform effort and has been a consultant on health care reform for the Clinton, Edwards, and Obama presidential campaigns. The Washington Post called him “possibly the [Democratic] party’s most influential health-care expert.” In addition, in 2006 he was named the 19th most powerful person in health care in the United States by Modern Healthcare Magazine.

In addition, Professor Gruber is the Director of the Health Care Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is a Research Associate, and the author of a leading undergraduate textbook Public Finance and Public Policy. He is also a co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Health Economics.

The purpose of the Forum is to provide an opportunity for discussion and debate about U.S.: What current public policy issues from an economic perspective. The Forum is funded through the Philip E. Austin Endowed Chair, which is currently held by Professor Kathleen Segerson in the Department of Economics.

This year’s AGES distinguished speaker: Carmen Reinhart

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The Association of Graduate Economics Students (AGES) invites every year a prominent speaker to give a public lecture on campus. Over the past years, speakers included Greg Mankiw, Ariel Rubinstein and Karl Case as well as Nobel Laureates Finn Kydland and Robert Lucas. This year’s speaker will be Carmen Reinhart.

Prof. Reinhart is a specialist of financial crises and has extensively studied the many collapses in economic history. Her studies have recently culminated in a book with Kenneth Rogoff, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Princeton Press), which will be at the center of her talk February 24, 2011, at 11:00 AM in the Konover Auditorium, Dodd Research Center. The talk is open to the public.

Prof. Reinhart has a PhD from Columbia University and recently moved from the University of Maryland to the Peterson Institute of International Economics. She has been deputy research director at the International Monetary Fund and chief economist at Bear Stearns. She is currently the top ranked female economist.

More details at AGES.

BA alumnus David Stockton receives UConn Distinguished Alumni award October 1, 2010.

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The UConn Alumni Association will give the 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award to David Stockton on October 1. After completing his BA and MA at UConn in just four years (1972-76), under the supervision of Professor Emeritus William McEachern, Stockton obtained a second MA and his PhD in Economics at Yale University. A Danforth Fellow, Yale Fellow, and member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi, Stockton joined the Federal Reserve’s Division of Research and Statistics in 1981. Since 2000, he has served as the Director of Research and Statistics, overseeing the Fed’s large staff of PhD economists who conduct research and inform the Fed’s Board of Governors–the architects of U.S. monetary policy.

Both the current Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, and his predecessor Alan Greenspan have strongly praised Stockton’s expertise and advice on economic matters. In addition to his responsibilities for directing longer-term research projects at the Fed, Stockton presents regular economic forecasts to the Federal Open Market Committee–the group of officials that regularly meets to decide Fed policies and actions that shape banking operations and interest rates in the U.S. and abroad. Stockton’s public service career continues a family tradition. David’s father, Ed Stockton served as Mayor of the Town of Bloomfield, and later was named Commissioner of Economic Development under Governors Ella Grasso and William O’Neill. The Stockton family’s New Jersey ancestor Richard Stockton signed the Declaration of Independence.

Stockton will be officially honored at an Alumni Association event in the South Campus Rome Hall Ballroom, on October 1, 2010. Earlier in the day, he will meet with Honors students and give a talk in the Department of Economics.

For more about this event, the UConn Alumni Association write-up about David Stockton and the list of the other award recipients of the day. The UConn Alumni Magazine also ran a story about David Stockton.

New class set to graduate

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On Saturday May 8, 2010, a new class of students will walk in the commencement ceremonies and get well-deserved degrees. As there are no December ceremonies any more, the walking class in larger than usual. 212 students will be receiving the BA in Economics, of which 40 are double majors. Seven students will be graduating with Honors in Economics: Joseph Antelmi, Michael Bokoff, Taylor Brown, Charles Johnson, Bryan Murphy, Eric Roy, and William Watson. The Economics major is very popular on campus, in previous years it has been the third most sought after. Note also that among all Economics degree granting institutions in the United States, the University of Connecticut ranks 26th by the number of degrees conferred last year.

We also have a graduating class in our graduate programs. Are graduating with a MA: Jay Adams, Demet Cimen, Amy Druckenmiller, Elnara Eynullayeva, Elizabeth Kaletski, Xingkang Liu, Xiaoyin Shen, Rijesh Shrestha, Li Wang, Menxi Ying and He Zang. And with a PhD: Lei Chen, Onur Burak Celik, Marina-Selini Katsaiti, Monica Lopez-Anuarbe, Zinnia Mukherjee and Natalya Shelkova.